If your SaaS affiliate program is working, you’re on someone’s radar.
As your affiliate traffic and conversions grow, so is the chance that someone’s trying to piggyback on that growth by registering lookalike domains, hijacking your URL/traffic, and cashing in on your program's success.
This action is called typosquatting: registering domains that look like yours (misspelled domains) to trick users and steal commissions.
It’s a serious risk for SaaS affiliate programs, and if you’re not actively preventing it, you’re leaving money and trust on the table.
We're here to help you—affiliate managers—fight and prevent typosquatters.
Here's how typosquatting works, how you can tell it is happening, and some prevention steps to protect your brand, affiliate program, and affiliates from typosquatting.
What Typosquatting Looks Like in Affiliate Marketing
Nobody loves typos, and mistakes of course happen, but don't be fooled: typosquatting isn’t actually a mistake—it’s very much deliberate.
Bad actors buy domain names that closely mimic yours, then set up redirects or spoofed sites to trick users and reroute affiliate commissions.
So yeah, typos may happen, but typosquatters are doing a whole lot more after that.
You don't build spoofed sites by accident, do you?
Here are the most common tactics they use:
- Character substitution: Using similar-looking characters, like replacing a small “l” (L) with a capital “I” (i) (e.g. rewardfuI.com - a really deceiving one!)
- Character omission: Leaving out a letter (e.g. rewadful.com)
- Character addition: Adding an extra letter (e.g. rewardfull.com)
- Character transposition: Swapping two letters (e.g. rewadrful.com)
- Domain variation: Using a different top-level domain (e.g. rewardful.net instead of .com)
- Subdomain tricks: Adding your brand as a subdomain of another site (e.g. rewardful.fakepromo.com)
How Typosquatting Affects Your Affiliate Program
Typosquatting isn’t just a domain issue, it’s an affiliate fraud issue. That's because typosquatters don’t just steal your traffic. They:
- Hijack your URL
- Insert their own affiliate IDs to redirect credit
- Steal commissions that should go to your real partners
- Ruin attribution and skew your data
- Undermine trust with your affiliates
- Make your brand look unprofessional (especially if the fake site is full of ads or malware, which is often the case)
Typosquatting in affiliate marketing is easy to miss, and expensive when you don’t.
So let's be proactive, and start by looking at fraud prevention tactics to protect your affiliates.
4 Prevention Strategies to Actively Battle Typosquatters in Affiliate Programs
1. Register Your Own Common Typo Domains
Start by owning the domain typos before someone else does. Here's how to take action:
- Use tools like DomainTools or Nameboy to generate typo variations
- Prioritize the most likely mistakes based on your traffic and brand name
- Set up automatic redirects from typo domains to your real site
- Reassess as your affiliate program grows and your brand name spreads
2. Use Advanced Affiliate Tracking Tools
Your affiliate tracking setup should catch shady behavior before commissions go out. What you should be doing:
- Use platforms like Rewardful that detect self-referral and suspicious traffic patterns
- Enable last-touch attribution to prevent fraud
- Set up alerts for abnormal spikes in conversions or unusual referrer data
- Consider digital fingerprinting to verify traffic sources
3. Educate Your Affiliates about Typosquatting
Your affiliates are the first to notice when something feels off.
And when they do, it's usually already too late. So educate them early on the risks and their responsibilities:
- Include typosquatting in your affiliate onboarding and training
- Explain how typosquatting schemes work and how they affect everyone
- Give affiliates a direct way to report suspicious domains or traffic
- Encourage them to monitor their own links and brand mentions
4. Add Clear Protections to Your Affiliate Contracts
Let's get legal involved. If you don’t already explicitly ban typosquatting and domain spoofing in your terms, now’s the time. Here is what you should do to strengthen your affiliates’ compliance:
- Create solid terms and conditions. Don't know how? See our guide about affiliate program's terms and conditions.
- Include specific language against domain squatting, misleading URLs, and impersonation
- Require affiliates to list all domains they plan to use for promotion
- Reserve the right to audit their activity if something looks suspicious
- Clearly outline the consequences, including withholding affiliate payment or partnership termination
Affiliate Typosquatting Detection and Monitoring Tools
Even with prevention in place, monitoring is critical.
These tools help you stay one step ahead.
Domain Monitoring Services
Look out for new web domains that resemble yours. Some tools that you may find helpful:
- Bolster: AI-powered domain fraud detector with real-timealerts
- DomainTools: Domain tracking and reputation data
- MarkMonitor: Full brand protection, used by enterprise teams
Brand Mention Tracking
You may catch typosquatters by watching how and where your brand is mentioned. Stay on top of them with these tips:
- Set up Google Alerts for brand and domain misspellings
- Use social listening tools like Mention or Brandwatch
- Regularly search for your brand + “.com”, “.net”, etc.
- Look for unauthorized use of your logos or assets
Traffic Analysis
If a squatter is rerouting traffic, your data will show it—so you should be paying attention. Or at least, your affiliate software should be. With affiliate management tools like Rewardful, you can easily:
- Monitor for unexplained drops in direct traffic
- Watch for spikes in bounce rate from referral sources
- Use funnel visualization to spot weird drop-offs
- Check for unexpected countries or IP clusters hitting your site
What to Do if You Do Find a Typosquatter Damaging Your Affiliate Program
Despite your best efforts, typosquatting can still happen.
After all, they know the preventive tactics just as well, if not better. Here’s what to do if you do catch one.
1. Document Everything
Collect evidence before you take action. That means:
- Taking screenshots of the website and any affiliate links in use
- Using WHOIS to gather domain ownership details
- Documenting any content that copies yours
- Saving tracking IDs, referral paths, and conversion anomalies
2. Report the Domain and Host
You can often shut these down without legal action. The most straightforward way is to:
- File an abuse report with the domain registrar
- Contact the hosting provider to report the fraudulent site
- Submit a DMCA notice if your content or branding has been copied
- Keep written records of all communication
3. Explore Legal Remedies if Needed
Some cases require escalation—especially if brand damage or revenue loss is significant. In that case, you'll want to:
- Consult with an intellectual property attorney
- Consider filing a complaint under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP)
- Send a cease and desist letter
- Review whether trademark infringement claims apply in your jurisdiction
4. Keep Your Affiliate Network Updated
Transparency builds trust with your partners. If a typosquatter has been caught, make sure to:
- Notify affiliates about the incident and your response
- Share steps they can take to protect themselves
- Reassure them that you're protecting legitimate commissions
- Offer guidance if they suspect similar issues in their own traffic
The most important thing is don't sweep typosquatters under the rug.
Transparency builds trust—not just when you share good news but also when you are open about challenges.
How to Further Safeguard SaaS Affiliate Programs from Typosquatting
Typosquatting hits harder when recurring revenue is involved. These strategies help protect SaaS-specific affiliate models.
Set Up Solid Recurring Revenue and Delayed Payout Systems
Subscriptions can make commission fraud harder to detect—and more expensive.
Here's how to take action:
- Add verification steps before attributing conversions
- Delay first payouts for new affiliates
- Implement two-factor authentication on new accounts
- Watch for anomalies in customer churn and usage
Strengthen Your Affiliate Program Integration Exposure
If your product integrates with other tools, your APIs could be a weak spot. Strengthen it up by:
- Demand secure authentication (e.g., OAuth) for integrations
- Monitor API usage for sudden changes
- Limit sensitive operations by IP range
- Validate integration partners before activating access
Monitor Risks from White-Label Resellers
White-label options can be used to mimic your product—or resold without approval.
Here's how to stop that, or at least make it harder:
- Register typo domains of your product name
- Monitor online marketplaces for unauthorized listings
- Use digital watermarking to detect white-label clones
- Consider fingerprinting your app or platform to track misuse
Build an Affiliate Program That's Harder for Typosquatters to Exploit
The stronger your foundations, the harder it is to defraud your affiliate program.
Here are some ways to keep your business and affiliates safe.
Use Two-Way Verification Systems
Make sure affiliates are who they say they are—and that they’re earning honestly:
- Sync with Stripe or your payment platform for verification
- Track affiliate performance with IP-based activity logs
- Require manual approval for affiliates hitting certain thresholds
- Implement probation periods for new partners
Control Affiliate's Promotional Assets
Take the guesswork out of creative use and reduce risk by taking these steps:
- Offer pre-approved landing pages or hosted content
- Use server-side tracking where possible
- Provide branded link shorteners or unique coupon codes
- Avoid letting affiliates host or modify their own tracking URLs
Run Regular Security Audits
Keep your affiliate program security solid by doing these:
- Review affiliate behavior and commissions every quarter
- Test your program for vulnerabilities using internal audits
- Ask top-performing affiliates to provide feedback
- Stay updated on evolving fraud techniques in affiliate marketing
Fight Typosquatters with the Right Affiliate Software
Typosquatting isn’t going away—especially if your affiliate program is working well.
But it doesn’t have to cost you conversions, commissions, or credibility.
Want help identifying fraud patterns or making sure your tracking setup is airtight?
Rewardful offers built-in fraud prevention and detection tools and tracking that make life harder for scammers and easier for your legitimate affiliates.
Try Rewardful for free for 14 days!
Typosquatting isn’t the only affiliate fraudulent activity that you should pay attention to. These affiliate marketing guides explain others and teach you how to prevent them:
